


I'm Not the Man They Think I Am at Home

by trimalchio



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-02
Updated: 2015-08-02
Packaged: 2018-04-12 12:48:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4479776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trimalchio/pseuds/trimalchio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An astronaut has recurring nightmares.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'm Not the Man They Think I Am at Home

**Author's Note:**

> I took a long break from the football fandom, but here I am again.
> 
> Hopefully I'll get together some more fics in the near future. I had the worst case of writer's block that I've ever had over the last few months.

He gasped loudly, scratching at his throat, gulping oxygen-rich air; his dark hair heavy with sweat.  Just a nightmare.  Just a dream.  Álvaro unzipped himself from his bunk.  No one else was in the bunk room.  They were all probably waiting for him to start the morning briefing.

Álvaro pulled himself through the narrow passages of the space station noiselessly.

“Good morning, Rip van Winkel,” Iker Casillas, the mission commander, greeted him in the mess.

“RIp van Winkel?  I thought we agreed the sarcastic nickname for oversleepers would be Sleeping Beauty,” Álvaro replied.  He opened one of the cabinets to get his toothbrush.

“You ain’t no beauty, old man,” Cris said, as he paddled through the cramped cabin, reaching for one of the apple sauce packages that had been stuck to Casillas’s food tray.  Casillas didn’t swat Cristiano away, which Álvaro definitely would have.

Casillas was studying Álvaro’s face, “Another bad dream?”

Álvaro shrugged, spitting his toothpaste into the suction tube.  Casillas didn’t reply.  Álvaro asked, “How’re the experiments going?”

Cristiano hit Kroos with the back of his hand, in his soft midsection, “Toni, they want to know about the experiments.”

Kroos and Cris were mission specialists, working together on some experiment Álvaro didn’t really understand.  It was Álvaro’s first mission.  His first time away from Earth.  Kroos was the only German on the mission, prone to retreating from conversations, since Álvaro and Casillas were both Spanish, while Cris was from Portugal.  During training, Álvaro had liked Cris the most, since he was the most like people that he would normally want to hang out with.

“It is good.  We are making good progress,” Kroos said.  And that was that.

All four of them wore tight gray onesies.  A three man crew of adult-sized babies in the empty nothingness revolving around Earth.  They were due home soon.  Back to Earth, a relatively small rock hurtling through oblivion.

Casillas, Cris and Kroos all worked on the experiment together.  Álvaro was supposed to perform system checks, reassuring the synch between the shuttle and the station.  His fingers tapped at the keyboard without any particular rhythm; the whir of all of the machinery sang quietly throughout the day.

The walls were thin and unnatural.  Fragile.  Most of the time Álvaro could distract himself from how impossible the whole concept was.  That the thin metal wall was all that protected him from nothingness.  From nonexistence.

After dinner, they were allowed to watch a movie.  It was Casillas’s night to videochat with home.  Álvaro would get his chance the day before they were going home.  Cris made sarcastic comments the whole time, while Kroos said nothing, sitting up straight through the entire duration.

There was a sudden jolt throughout the entire cabin.  It was the heaviest slam that Álvaro had ever felt in his entire life.  His heart felt like it had been displaced.  He wasn’t prepared.  Alerts, red flashing lights screamed from the every available screen.

“What the fuck?” Cris said, pushing himself away from the seat he had been occupying.

“We have to evacuate,” Álvaro said harshly, pushing away clutter that had unearthed itself from the cabinets, their straps, the closets.  Everything was floating freely throughout the cabin, spinning.  

“Are we spinning out?” Kroos hadn’t moved, even though Cris and Álvaro had gotten themselves to the other side of the cabin to enter the shuttle, even though they weren’t prepared.  Nothing was ready for this.

Álvaro didn’t reply.  Cris followed him into the shuttle to prepare for emergency evac.  No one ever had to do evac before.  Kroos still hadn’t entered the shuttle.  It was quiet in the shuttle, with the door closed.  The emergency system hadn’t synched; Álvaro had fucked up there.

“What about Iker?  What about Toni?” Cris demanded, while Álvaro settled himself into the pilot seat.  He buckled, his fingers shook.  He almost couldn’t buckle himself in.

“We don’t have time to—“ Álvaro felt the pull of gravity.  Gravity.  His hands stopped shaking, pulled slowly towards the ceiling.  They were tumbling.  Hurtling, tumbling, head over ass.  Cris, also strapped in, didn’t say anything.

“We don’t have time to decompress,” he finished.

“That doesn’t matter, does it?”

“We can try to save ourselves.”

“Why try if it’s a certainty?”  


“How do you know it’s a certainty?”

“Because I know,” Cris said.  He was always the smartest in the room and always allowed others to acknowledge that.

It took at least three hours to decompress the shuttle to prepare for departure.  There was no way out.  Álvaro used to fly when he was in the air force.  When he was young, he lost control of his plane and had to ditch.  He got out.  Survived.  Lived.  Lived long enough to certainly die here.

He couldn’t even scream.  He couldn’t cry.  Cris was quiet.  They had a long descent.  Álvaro turned on the communication system manually.  Nothing was being said over the comm.  Silent.  Oblivion.

“Is anyone there?” Álvaro asked.

“We’re here, Álvaro,” mission control replied.  It was Alonso.  He was trusty.  It figured that he’d be there on this day.  Of any day.  Alonso asked, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, fine.  Great.”

“We’ll be right here.  Is anyone with you?”

“Cris is here.  We left Kroos in the cabin.”

“Okay.  It’s okay, Álvaro.”

“Where’s Casillas?  Where’s Iker?” he asked.

“The comm and exercise compartments were heavily damaged, Álvaro.”

“How long?”

“Don’t tell us,” Cris said before Alonso could tell them, “I don’t want to know.”

Cris was the smartest in the room.  He probably knew already, but was unprepared for the fact to be stated allowed and made real.

Álvaro glanced back at Cris, whose mouth was pressed into a thin straight line.  They all had kids:  Cris, Kroos, and Casillas.  All three had little boys.  Álvaro wanted to believe that they were all unaware to this.  The unnatural, impossible thing that was happening above their heads.  Three children blowing the seeds off dandelions, in a small finite world.

“Don’t struggle, please,” Alonso said, “Please, just…”

Go.  Just go.  Disappear into eternity.  Allow nothingness to overtake.  Alonso was too nice to actually say the words.

They had hours before the craft would actually disintegrate.  Hopefully the g-forces of the spin combined with the descent would render them unconscious before that.  Álvaro reached out to grab Cris’s hand.  Cris held it.

Álvaro woke up with a start. He was the first awake.  After morning briefing, he returned to synching the computers.  The first thing he worked on was synching the emergency system with the shuttle computers, but that meant he had to turn off the main decompression alert system.  Mission control promised to monitor the oxygen levels during the process.

Kroos stayed behind in the comm compartment to watch Álvaro on the computers.

Álvaro asked, “How many missions have you been on before?”

“Two.”

Álvaro tried to be friendly with Kroos whenever they crossed paths, since they crossed paths often.  They only had two more days before the return.  Before Álvaro would be free from eternity.

“How’d you join the ESA?”

“I’m a physicist.”

“Were you in the air force?”

“No.  You were though, yes?”

“Yeah.  I was a pilot.”

“Are a pilot.”

“Am a pilot,” Álvaro nodded.  When Álvaro was done with the synch, he turned on all of the alerts manually.  Alarms blared, flashing red and white.  The entry to the rest of the station slid shut before Álvaro could react.

“What’d you do?” Kroos demanded.

Mission control commed, “There was a slow leak in your compartment, masked when you turned off the alerts.”

“You should have noticed that,” Kroos said, punching the comm system futilely.

“What happens now?  Is there a way for you to overturn the emergency lock?” Álvaro asked.

“We can’t risk the rest of the crew.”

“There’s only two of them left, then,” Kroos said, “And their pilot is inside the lock.  How do you plan on getting them back.”

“I’m sorry.”

It wasn’t Alonso at Mission Control that day.

“There’s nothing we can do for you,” Mission Control replied.  Kroos turned off the comm system.

“Here we are.”

Kroos and Álvaro watched a sunrise and a sunset before they felt the effects of hypoxia start.  It was only an hour and fifteen minutes between each one.  Oxygen drained slowly from the compartment.

“Our measures for time are irrelevant here,” Kroos said, “They’re based around experiences we have on Earth.  Not what we experience here.”

Álvaro wanted to crawl away to die in peace.  To crawl into a small forgotten corner and just evaporate.

“What do you propose would work instead?”

“Nothing.  Time is irrelevant.  Measurement of something intangible that we can no longer use.  All we can measure now is until we actually choke.”

“Now I know why no one wanted to talk to you.  You’re really fucking depressing.”

“I see it all clearly now,” Kroos insisted, “Everything is happening all at once.  Fission, fusion, cell division, life cycles.  It’s all right now.”

“What about dinosaurs?”

“What about dinosaurs?”

“They’re not happening right now.”

“As humans perceive time they’re not happening now, but they walk along the same dirt that we do.  Numbers compose the Universe.  The numbers that made the dinosaurs are still there.  They’re still here.”

Kroos laughed, “Why was I so concerned with stupid stuff?  Stupid, stupid, stupid stuff.”

“Like what?”

“Marriage, children, all that stupid stuff.”

“Basic human desires are stupid stuff?”

“The numbers that compose my son and my wife…they’re just repetitions that echo throughout the Universe.  If those numbers in the same combination appear again and the numbers that compose me in the same combination appear again, we’ll all be together again.  And it was stupid to be concerned that we wouldn’t be.”

Álvaro looked out the window of the comm compartment.  They were over the South Pacific.  The kids down there probably swam all day like little fish.

Every single part of Álvaro felt sluggish.  He had never been so thoroughly aware of his extremities, feeling everything.  His fingers were blue.  Kroos had fallen asleep within a half hour of his declaration.  He had blue patches growing on his cheeks, like a weird angel.  He was curled into the fetal position, drifting above Álvaro’s head.  Álvaro pushed Kroos’s foot away from him weakly.  His eyesight was failing, black spots were getting larger in his frame of vision.

Hours before, Álvaro had been something.  He had been alive, existing.  But then, now, he was not much longer.  Nothing.

Álvaro woke up in his bunk sweating.  They were returning to Earth the next day.  Álvaro missed everything about Earth.  Gravity, grass, birds.  Dogs, lawn mowers, chaise lounges.

Kroos, Cris, and Casillas were all done with their experiment, so all four of them could watch movies and play cards or really whatever they wanted within the reasonable constraints of their position.  It was Álvaro’s turn to get a call from home.

He, Cris, and Casillas all played Parchís, while Kroos read a book.  After two rounds of Parchís, Álvaro went to the comm compartment to accept the call.

He saw Raúl’s face on the screen before the call fully connected.  When they connected, Raúl smiled, “Hola Maverick.”  

“Hola, Picasso,” Álvaro said, “You know, I really miss you.

“Yeah?” Raúl smiled, “Same here.”

“How’s work?” While Álvaro was in space, Raúl was in Italy.  Italy used to seem so far away.

“Fine.  I’ll be there when you get back, though.  I’m going to be in Spain for a couple of weeks.  I got a painting for you.”

Álvaro nodded, “I’m ready to get back.  I’m really ready.”

Raúl had a goofy, easy smile.  Like a puppy.  People used to say that a painter and a pilot was a strange couple.  What did they talk about?  An astronaut and a painter.  What do they talk about?

There were so many things that Álvaro wanted to tell Raúl.  When they got back to Spain, Álvaro just wanted to be near him.  Feel his body heat.  Lean against his body.  Live within four walls and a miniature timeline.  He was probably going to quit the ESA, if they hadn’t already determined this wasn’t a good fit for him.

Álvaro missed the illusion of control.  He used to have a sense of power.  He was in the air force; important concepts like gravity and the sound barrier used to be manipulative goals.  He used to be a real shithead.  He was still probably a real shithead, but a shithead with a new fatalism.

“I don’t want to be away from you ever again,” Álvaro said.  He was thoroughly aware of the false promise of infinity, but at least, Raúl deserved what the promise should have meant.

After his call, rejoined the rest of the crew.  They were watching a pre-recorded football game—Real Madrid versus Bayern Munich in the Champions League.

After Álvaro woke up, he started his checks.  So they could finally go home.

“Ready to get out of here?” Casillas asked; he was wearing his flight suit.  They were all ready to return.  All four of them had gotten thinner from the lack of gravity.

“Definitely,” Álvaro replied.

“Did you have another bad dream?”

Álvaro shrugged.

“Man, you’ve been a wreck ever since you got here,” Casillas said, “What are your dreams about?”

“About Raúl leaving.  That’s it.”

“Raúl wouldn’t leave you.  You two are crazy about each other.”

Álvaro shrugged again.

“I wouldn’t have thought you’d be a scared person.  I thought pilots were fearless.”

“If you know what you’re doing when you’re flying a plane, the only way not to be afraid is to be crazy,” Álvaro said.

“Have you ever crashed a plane?”

“Every pilot’s crashed at least once.  It’s like driving:  you do something long enough, you’ll hit something else.  How many trips to the station have you made?”

“Six.  This is my sixth,” Casillas replied.

Álvaro, Casillas, Kroos, and Cris waited in the shuttle for decompression to finish.  He had lied to Casillas.  He had never dreamed about Raúl would leave.  Not even once.  Not even before he left Earth.

In his dream, Mission Control stopped responding.  Álvaro, Casillas, Kroos, and Cris managed to linger on for a few weeks before eventually dying from asphyxiation, due to Carbon Dioxide buildup without any maintenance of the oxygen tanks.

After decompression was completed, Álvaro set course for Earth.  The shuttle gave an unnatural shudder.  Álvaro turned to look at Casillas, whose grip on his armrest had turned his knuckles white.

“Ready to go?”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> So this was inspired by The Long Winters song, "The Commander Thinks Aloud." (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8AisTXgAGA) It's a really great song.
> 
> The title comes from Elton John's "Rocket Man."


End file.
